#04 Mitochronia : Participants : Véronique Chance
'London to Cambridge Run Commute (a rhythmanalysis). Thursday 17th July 2026.'
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photorag 308g archival paper
'London to Cambridge Run Commute (a rhythmanalysis)', is from a live artwork and performance undertaken from the 16th to the 23rd July 2025, for which I undertook the task of running my commute route from London to Cambridge as a live performance, for the exhibition “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich.
In appealing to the language of ethics and wellbeing, that encourages (faster), better productivity and efficiency at work, these initiatives were turned on their head through the through the paradoxical and inefficient use of the health activity of running, that in effect, slowed down of the time taken by me to ‘get to work’. Instead of my return journey taking two hours, it took eight days, and leaving on the day after the exhibition, I arrived at work at the weekend after four days, when there is no work, only to turn back and head home the next day. Live streaming and the uses of tracking and data technologies measuring my labour and productivity were put to work through the physical effort of an absurdly slow commute to and from work. This enabled me to experience the landscape and terrain that normally passes me by on a fast journey by train and to share this with audiences online and in the gallery.
For the Mitochronia exhibition the visual biometric data gathered and stored on my Garmin watch during the run has been put to work to create a series of new digital pigment prints and animations made from the range of daily bodily data stored on my watch over time during the run. Data from my energy; stamina potential; temperature; ground contact time; vertical ratio; stride length; heart rate; power; run cadence; performance condition; pace; elevation, are combined to represent the overall physical work my body did on each day of the eight-day run.
The animations flash up each layer of the representative part of my bodily data shown in the prints, revealing each aspect in pulsing continuous repetitive looping rhythmic sequences recalling the rhythm of my heartbeat and footfall.
This work indirectly acknowledges the thinking behind French philosopher Henri Lefebvre concept of rythymanalysis,(1992), a method he designed for studying everyday life using the human body as a primary instrument of measurement and analysis in the interaction of time, space, and energy through repetitive mechanical actions, such as walking or factory work, and cyclical processes, such the repetitive cycles of the day and night or the seasons. Lefebvre suggests that "rhythmanalysts" should use their own bodies—senses, heartbeats, and breathing—as metronomes to perceive, measure, and understand polyrhythmic, social, and cyclical temporalities within urban spaces. In this sense the concept aligns well with the thinking behind this work and the exhibition overall.
My practice explores how running as a performance and mediated practice enables us to engage with and reconsider ideas of embodiment, place and representation. This is aligned to ways in which running as a creative practice can challenge established understandings, perceptions and assumptions around running as a sport.
The runs I undertake are performed in specific places along pre-determined routes and are mediated to an audience live through mobile technology that is enabled to track my journey as it is taking place and to relay images of my viewpoint and location. The particularity of running is aligned with key concepts in performance art practices, such as physical effort, difficulty and endurance, and how we understand fundamental aspects of the human body, its rhythms and limitations and how we care for the body. The uses of mobile phones as a direct means of communication, mediation and dissemination in the artwork, acknowledges the historical role of liveness and documentation in performance art, whilst testing the limits of technology and recognising the impact of its use and its pervasiveness in everyday life. It also links with contemporary reproductive arts, by emphasising the use of technology in the reproduction and live dissemination of images as a key part of the work.
This has included drawing attention to ways in which mobile phone technologies and other personal devices track, quantify and measure the body and its environment and exploring how these can be critically examined through artistic practice.
Based in London, I studied at Manchester Polytechnic, Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London and have a PhD from Goldsmith’s College, University of London. I currently work part-time as Senior Lecturer and Course Director of the MA Fine Art course at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Cambridge, UK. I am also co-founder of the Running Artfully Network (RAN), an international artist-led group, launched in 2021, whose aim is to reframe running as an artistic intervention.
Website: https://www.veroniquechance.com/
